To get into remote towns we get on the highway with some idea of the destination, and turn onto an *off-ramp when we get near to where we want to be. If we live in a large city, we may not need the highway, because many services will be local. We can meet friends, known ones or new ones by looking at *bulletin boards (BBs). We can look at local guides and directories, advertisements, and newspapers to learn what is going on.
In the meeting places one can meet potential friends, but also crooks. While one will not be physically hurt when interacting solely on the network, one should be careful when giving out addresses, keys, credit card numbers, and the like. In Chap\F we will present the possibilities of making contacts for electronic commerce, and the need for security. Today's electronic highways are still in the middle ages, and one can encounter knights, bandits, Robin Hoods, good samaritans, peasants, and artisans trudging warily to markets, and many individuals just seeking adventure in other countries.
Off-ramps from the highways also provide access to fantasy worlds, with castles, labyrinths, etc., populated by mythical beasts, to slay or befriend. A visitor can assume a playful role in this fantasy world: a meek person can be a fearless hero, and anyone can issue sage advice. Playing games with others in such fantasy worlds is enabled by accessing *Multi-User Dungeons (MUD). Players can deal with mythical beasts or other players, who they have never met as real persons. Players preserve anonymity by giving themselves imaginative names (*handles?) as "Moonshadow" [ref Washington Post Legislate #1193184, 28Nov93].
At other Off-ramps one finds opportunities to meet people, to shop, and a wide variety of
information. The table in this chapter lists some of the
resources, but the scene varies so rapidly that it is best explored on-line; although many
guides are published [Braun:94, Dern:94, Krol:92]. <
But as travel became affordable, people strarted hawking
their wares along the roads. And since goods are not consumed, only
copied along the highways, many people set up stalls showing and
sharing their wares, without expecting any reimbursement, other than
some `thank you's, some recognition, and the hope to be able to change
the world a bit. Many government institutions starting making their
data available, often with similar motivation.
but
inadequate means of making them available, WAIS needs 1.
incremtenal delivery, 2. Measures `of relevance (now 1/0) , 3. then
ranking
client server model. Objective was simply to reduce lead
time for physics preprint
Mouse diven. Image access. Sound.
100ds of
DBs configuted with Mosaic. Nasa`weather, Clinton's speeches @
Un.of Missouri, music vidoes @ MTV , Library of Congres catalogue, UC
Berkeley paleontology Novell for its documents. Next on-line magazines,
supported by advertising [O'Reilly and assocaites, Sebastopol CA]
need direct Internet hookup Mitch Kapoor, ex Lotus, head Electronic
Frontier Foundation. Today an enormous volume of information is
available.
It
distinguishes itself from formal *querying (Chap.\L\F\Query?) by
serving casual visitors wandering along the information highway.
Since the casual
browser will not know the prcise designation of what is wanted,
assistance is needed. A number of methods can be employed be helpful
assistant. \item{1} A menu can be provided. Since there is too
much stuff to fit on one menu page, the menu will be hierarchically
organized. Figure\friendly showed the top entry of such a menu. At
each level of a hierarchy a choice among $7\pm2$ categories seems
optimal for human perception [TMN<<>>]. Creating natural icons for all
entries can be difficult. When there no natural hierarchy which can
serve as a layer then initial letters or digits can be used, but
user-friendliness is soon lost. \item{2} Multiple menus are often
needed. A single hierarchy imposes one organization principle. Even if
it can be shown that one taxonomy is best, say arranging auomobiles by
brand, type, and serial number, some searchers will prefer to search
for the same cars by color, size, and age, and yet others by state,
town, and license numbers. Zooming in a map may be the best way to
pinpoint a location. Sometimes one may want to use characterstics from
multiple hierarchies. There might have to be a menu of menus.
\item{3} Generalizing from examples. A browser may want to bring an
example, perhaps by reference, and look for similar items. [CBR]. One
may want a car that is similar to one owned earlier, or find
suspects that match a sketch or a video clip. To locate a piece of
music one may hum a view bars, and to locate a house one may sketch
its outline. \enditem In all cases browsing is characterized by
successive refinement and interaction. In Chap.\U\H we reviewed which
types of computers are effective in supporting such interaction.
< problem WWWeb
requires modification of source documents, unaccepatble, confusion.
[Engelbart]
Technology is
making rapid progress in managing data in all these media. The cost of
transmission is high for some of them, as discussed in Chap\U\T\?
Applies also to noisy
emvironmements, or to situations as within a kibrary, where bleeps
disturb the desired silemce, or to be people working underwater.
Technology
Initially hypertext linkages may be created by the author. Authors who structure their
writing in a top-down fashion, from layout to chapters to sections etc. create a natural
linkage hierarchy, which is easily captured by these hyperlinks. Such an author may also
be aware when the hierarchy breaks down and references across the hierarchical tree are
needed.
Tools to convert existing texts to hypertext are available. They will seek out all terms and
cross-link them, omitting words that are common (* stopwords, as considered when
indexing in Chapter\L\T\INDEXING) or appear in every section. Terms that appear only
once cannot be linked, of course. Some human assistance is typically required. It makes
no sense to cross-link all citations, only links that provide useful explanatory material
need to become hyperlinks. Just as in indexing, a problem for automatic creation of
hypertext is that concepts are expressed by multiple terms, and the terms themselves are
spelled inconsistently, so that it is easy to miss useful linkages. Having a good * thesaurus
will generate many more links, but the result will require yet more editing to remove
irrelevant linkages.
Ongoing interactions with users is one way to maintain hypertext documents. Now a
responsive maintainer is needed throughout a document's useful life-time. Such a
maintainer, should be reimbursed, and that requires charging mechanisms, which have
been an anathema to the community developing browsing.
Linkages among documents add further value, but should probably be limited to major
topics, so that the browsing user is not induced to open an excessive number of mariginal
documents, The technology for inter-document and inter-node browsing is also more
complex, since the references will be much more indirect. A remote document is also
subject to editing, requiring updating of cross-references to it. Since up-to-date
documents are more valuable than static ones, their maintenance is of great value.
Currently, remote hyperlinks are rarely available. No standards exists for links and link
interpretation. If standards were available, remote access would be readily enabled, since
most suppliers of hypertext documents are committed to * open systems. Having an open
system does not imply that a hypertext service needs to be free, so that the ability to
handle * e-money remains an issue.
HTML MIME standards (no synchronized video)
Once the material has been received from a MOSAIC server it has to be displayed on
your machine
Work going on o make it extensible, work with SGML suppliers
Shared Mosaic (NCSAA Collage - whiteboard)
script language to create ahypermedia tour.
Secure Mosaic.
Authoring tool for mOSAIC
Storyboard (EITsech, available on PCs also, without standards) emailable animation <-->
<
succuss in Mosaic is due to the good viewers on X-windows, MAC, MS wndows
<
adds 3_D (using Silicon Graphics 3D icons) also real-world 3D models(digitizing the
baroque library building in Vienna)
Anchors in arbitrary datatypes
Computer navgable links
Annotations of Different types
collection and guides tours overlaid over WWWeb net defned by public or private
supplier
avoids physical copies
Attributes to constrain search, with intersection capability
Spin-oofs HyperM presentation system
HM-card personal Hypermedia system
PClibrary electronic library = collection of books with langenscheidt and Brockhaus,
Springer. Intially mainly dictionairies, ency, Duden, now handbookof machnen bau, ENT
, ... medical texts
select books for one's desktop, then allows searching for hyperterms. , then personal
linkages can be made
Journal of Universal Computer Science (JUCS), annually in paper by Springer.
[C.Calude, H.maurer, A.Salomaa] Submission by email, referreing via Hyper-G.,
Publication Hypper-G at multiple server sites (at many Univ. for local fast[A access, 50
committees), free 1995-1996 after 1997 $100/year per line per University
net access needed for detailed in figures (local default `postagecstamp figures', for
printing acquire better quality PS copies.
CDROM, paper
Quality citable
150 leading scientist editors. { .. boman SRI,Stanford, ... , schllgeter Nievergelt (Zurich)
production
Protection trust universities, large companies, idvidula ccontrol has been lost.
[Maurer]
Keep things affordable to discourage copying.
cross check with manual reference to see if you have the manual handy ask for a color
code
MCC EInet MCC for corporate, industry networks with commercial txs
Security firewalls, Kerboros
for Galaxy directory services see http://galaxy.einet.net
Active learning [H.Maurer] Record voivce image of prof, presenation, etc digitally
Remote access, and grebn/red light to indicate speed up and slow down. Authoring on the
fly.
AEIOU project for Austria's 1000 anniversary, to become publically available, with
history, pictures, culture, ilm arciv, Musickgeschichte with sound Ausriaca demo films
how one lives, ets, dies` in austria, 15000 world images` collected by maurer.
Ostereich lexicon, [ontological unification with germany]
mixed, exclusive, invalidated links. who maintains them-best local,
unless turned over>
Such linkages may be created implicitly, by tracing the users path
while navigating through a document. Creating such a pathe also has
the immediate byproduct of allowing backup, by having an * undo option
which reverses the travel, although retaining a record of the path
taken.
Created by -what are you looking at 3 -- data helmet
Remote browsing is here today, and has opened the eyes and minds of
many people to the benefits that can be gained by traveling the
information highways. A secondary reaction is that too much is
available along those roads, and the number of hawkers is increasing
steadily. There will be a market for guides and advisors to help the
traveler. If the traveler is in search of specific items, rather than
idly perusing the wares, then there is also a role for brokers or
mediators.
As in any new enterprise, the market is quite inconsistent in form and
content. As remote access becomes broadly available the problem of
inconsistent terminology will become more troublesome. Those troubles
will motivate [groundswell] efforts to become consistent, today the
establishment of common * ontologies is largely carried out in
isolation.
Free internet communication makes sattelite communication unaccetble
but neededto motivate introduction of new technologies.
CS99I
Superman as control hand direction and stretch to speed to warp speeds
(inside body?) space and body seems real, the ffamiliar
somewhere
Deal with thousands of servers.[MIT gifford: cntent labels on servers. Mediatr
agents.]
http:///www-psrg.lcs.mit.edu/ for 500 wais servers. with query completion, probability
based on headlines in contebt.
BROWSING.History
Using the computer for browsing is a relatively new activity. Until
the internet was well established there were few places one could get
to, and even fewer that could be accessed freely. There were
libraries, but access to them was often limited to qualified experts.
There were some directories, but those were intended for scientists,
for instance to locate data gathered by NASA explorations [ref BROWSING.History.MEDLINE
Some institutions have
delivered information to remote users for a long time, for instance
the National Library of Medicine (NLM) with its Medline service. The
papers that are made available are carefully selected and indexed.
Such library operations will be presented in Chap\L. The number of
such *value-added services is increasing, but the services discussed
in this chapter focus on broad and free access, with little guarantee
that the contents is accurate, complete, and unbiased. The reader must
judge the value of what has been stored and retrieved. Knowing the
source can help, for instance, one would not expect !example of an
obviously biased BB. BROWSING.History.access
There are many
documents that people want to make available at a much more informal
level. By providing *anonymous *ftp access to colleagues on the
*Internet, the formal library system can be bypassed, avoiding both
delays and scientific scrutiny.
Accessing more general information remotely was awkward using
the basic internet file transfer (FTP) protocol.
A succession of services developed, which culminated in the browsers
you are using to view this book.
ARCHIE
Since FTP-sites are widely
dispersed, and may use somewhat different access conventions, a tool
to broaden access is helpful. An early popular tool was `Archie'.
An ftp-site can become an Archie-server, by submitting its TCP-IP
address to [[xx]].
Software at this site makes an index of
ftp-accessible documents and programs available to Archie clients.
A searcher for a document now has a much wider
choice, and when likely documents are identified, can execute the
proper ftp protocol to obtain them.GOPHER
Univ. of Minnesota
VERONICA
Veronica[Un.Nevada]=Gopher index server, updated monthly,
replicated
PROSPERO
WAIS
In 1989
Thinking Machines Corporation, and in particular [Brewster Kahle],
were investigating broader uses of their *Connection Machine (CM), a
powerful parallel computer suitable for rapid scanning of large bodies
of text. The CM computers had been effective in intelligence
agencies, but that market is limited. Thinking Machines made their
software, *WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) and CMs at their home
site freely available and so enabled many groups with data resources
to experiment with provision of free data access over networks. Data
can be accessed by anyone with a minimal terminal or PC, all the
search effort is done in the CM. The search conventions and data
formats established for WAIS led to a standard: *X39.50. Today some of
those experimenters have installed their own equipment, and can make
data available themselves, following the same standards. Today a
separate company, WAIS, Inc., provides WAIS HTTP
Tim [Berners.Lee:] at Cern 1989 for high energy physicists
hypertextMOSAIC
Mosaic is a
browsing tool provided by the Supercomputer Center in Champaign
Illinois, supported through NASA. Browses through World-wide web.
Berners.Lee:] arrt Cern BROWSING.Functions
Browsing is an
informal, unaided search through information sources. < NAME="STARTING">BROWSING.Functions.starting
When browsing
the searcher has no specific idea in what exists in the information
bases, and little idea of where relevant information might be.
Initial steps try to identify candidate resources, using the
equivalent of the *yellow pages to find candidate suppliers. In
subsequent steps the material on the shelves of the candidate
suppliers are scanned to look for interesting stuff. If there are
many shelves, you may try to find the most likely shelves by their
label, or you may consult local inventory lists. BROWSING.functions
\NEWSBROWSING.functions
\GAMESBROWSING.functions
\ENCYCLOPEDIASBROWSING.functions
\LINKINGBROWSING.functions.annotation
(!or in Library)BROWSING.functions.flexible-media
The systems that are becoming available for browsing use an
increasing variety of media. While simple text still dominates, there
are drawings, pictures, videoclips, film, sounds and voice. The only
sensory output missing along the digital highways are smells and
bumps. With the variety of information media come a variety of
presentation and input *modes. For graphics we need to display or
enter lines and shadings for areas. For pictures we need TV-like
displays and digital input of photographs, x-rays, etc. For video and
film we need sequences of images, presented with precision, so that
motion remains smooth. Sounds are represented by digitized waveforms,
and spoken words must be played back precisely to be clear to the
listener.BROWSING.functions.disabled
An important category of requirements for media conversion is to
provide fair access to *disabled persons. Participation in activities
along the digital highways can can make a crucial difference her.
Access to the information highwas should empower, rather than hinder
disabled people. Today the U.S. alone is spending $200Billion per
year on services to disabled and elderly persons. Bringing the digital
highways into their homes is the first step. Assuring access for
*visually, speech, or motion impaired individuals is the next step.
BROWSING.Technology
Mosaic
Netscape
Microsoft Internet Browser
Altavista
Yahoo
Linkages to electronic Commerce
shopping
recruitment $5B indisutry in advet. Including, classified ads.
real-estate
Linguistic feature extraction / JDBC / ODBC
Alexa
Alexa
BROWSING.Technology.knowbots
KNOWBOTS
Cookies
When a program coming into your home on the Information Highway it can leave a memento behind.
BROWSING.Technology.repositories
REPOSITORIES BROWSING.Technology
\KNOWBOTS< NAME="TECHNOLOGY">BROWSING.Technology
\STANDARDS
Z39.50< NAME="TECHNOLOGY">BROWSING.Technology
\HYPERTEXT
A hypertext is an active text, where the reader can * touch any term in document and
move to a section in the document where more information on that topic is provided. In
practice only certain terms are touchable in hypertext systems, typically indicated by
being displayed in bold-face. Invisible to the user are embedded cross-references, which
indicate the position in the document of the referenced term.< NAME="TECHNOLOGY">BROWSING.Technology
\MOSAIC
[H.Maurer, IICM, Graz, austria] compatible still with gopherBROWSING.Alternatives
BROWSING.Alternatives.active objects
, tell
users, NII channel with 100 most active Universal Resource Locators (URLs)BROWSING.Alternatives.collaboration
\
Collaboration [hpc meet] for design UCberkeleyBROWSING.Alternatives.controlled vocabularies
[[or in library]] BROWSING.Alternatives.ontologies
BROWSING.Alternatives.personal links
In the hypertext model described above we have assumed that the
author or a subsequent maintainer creates hyperlinks as an added value
to the users. But some users are likely to require private links.
\STANDARDS
URL
URI
Z39A.50
HTML
XML
BROWSING.Bio
Bio Brewster Kahle
BROWSING.Conclusion
BROWSING.Lists
BROWSING.Resources
name / type sponsor topic access path charging
[ref] | %source AlterNex / BBoard / Brazil Ecology |
ARPA / Doc.svce HPCC documents free / http://ftp.arpa.mil |
Aurora? / finger file S.T.D., Un. .../ Canada status of the Aurora Borealis
aurora@xi.uleth.ca /Canada | Chatback / email group IBM Great Britain / Warwick 01 223 0017
contacts for / speech-handicapped children free Telecom Gold 01:CLK001 /
t.holloway@warwick.ac.uk |
Comlink / BBoard / Germany Ecology |
ConflictNet / BBoard Inst.for Global Comm. / San Francisco |
EcoNet / BBoard Inst.for Global Comm. / San Francisco Ecology
Sprint |
EcuNex / BBoard / Ecuador Ecology |
Fedworld / file service federal documents @130.11.48.107 |
GILS / Locator Office of Management\ Budget / (OMB) US
Government Information multiple / proposed IITF / echriti@usgs.gov> |
GlasNet / BBoard / Russia Ecology |
GreenNet / BBoard / Great Britain Ecology |
LaborNet / BBoard Inst.for Global Comm. / San Francisco |
PeaceNet / BBoard Inst.for Global Comm. / San Francisco |
Pegasus / BBoard / Australia Ecology | |
tr> Web / BBoard / Canada Ecology Wellington NZ museum
digitizes 1.5M objects, 100K in 3D. |
Fin
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Notes
elsewhere in text 3D: polarized, sitching glasses, TO omnview to place spots on 3D
space (use for air traffic control with mutiple controllers) , fine print, helmet >>